Pebble to Watson: You can stay longer

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — He lined up the 5-foot putt on No. 18, and he knew what it might eventually mean. He also knew what everyone else was thinking.

“That's in my gag zone,” Tom Watson admitted Friday.

Watson made the putt, but there were still no guarantees. Only when Phil Mickelson's birdie-run stalled was he safe; then Watson and the other golfers who ended at seven-over par would make the cut.

But Mickelson wasn't the one who allowed Watson to return for the weekend. Pebble Beach was. The course tested Watson, as Turnberry did last summer, as Augusta National did just two months ago, and Jack Nicklaus knows how this works.

Ten years ago, after all, Pebble told Nicklaus it was time.

At least Nicklaus heard it from a friend. Pebble Beach was his favorite, and Watson shares similar sentiments.

His dad went to Stanford before he did. Once, when Watson was a just a boy, the two of them played in a foursome at Pebble that included Imogene Coca, a long-ago but famous comedian.

“She could get it around,” Watson said.

As a student he would drive down from Palo Alto, coming up with what were then $15 greens fees. Sometimes, feeling sorry for the college kid, the starter would let him play for free.

Watson kept coming. He's played in all five U.S. Opens that have been here, the only golfer to do so. And when he beat Nicklaus in 1982, the chip from the fringe on No. 17 became part of history.

The shot can be re-lived today with both replays and metal. The wedge he used that day on No. 17 is currently displayed in a sponsor's tent.

These are the reasons the USGA issued a special exemption for Watson. And, for an added twist, tournament officials paired him the first two days with the Japanese teen star, Ryo Ishikawa, and a similar prodigy from Ireland, Rory McIlroy.

Combine their ages, and they are 21 years younger than Watson.

So Watson, at 60, had the look of a ceremonial golfer. And when he tried to explain before the tournament began why he was actually playing well, he emphasized he was coming off a victory.

“I won the rain-shortened 36-hole Tom Watson Challenge in Kansas City,” he said, and the room cracked up.

“You laugh,” he said. “But I did.”

He has his own measure of his game, and he displayed it with full force at Turnberry last July. Then, he might have won had he not hit an 8-iron too well on the final hole. That forced him to attempt a putt that, yes, was in his gag zone.

Watson was similarly brilliant in April, at the Masters, when he matched the lowest round of his Augusta career. That's why he didn't act like an old man after he shot 78 on Thursday here.

“Tomorrow,” he vowed, “I'll be playing better golf.”

He did. But after shooting par — better than Tiger Woods and dozens of others — he remained unsatisfied.

Nicklaus had no such illusions 10 years ago. He was about the same age then as Watson is now, but his game was creakier. Nicklaus shot an 82 in his final Open round.

“I'm ready to let it go,” Nicklaus said then, “and I'm ready to let it go for a very good reason. And that is that I can't — I really don't think that I can compete.”

Watson showed again, on a cold, cloudy day that reminded of his British best, that he still can. Maybe no one has been better at the age of 60.

He says he will retire when he can't compete anymore. And he's not sure if that will be in six months or six years.